Sought-after Hino needs room to expand

Increased demand for the popular trucks requires further expansion at the Prospecton plant

HINO, the commercial vehicle subsidiary of the Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan, has indicated it would soon have to consider further expanding its manufacturing plant in Prospecton, Durban, to cope with increased demand for its products.

Ernie Trautmann, vice-president of Hino South Africa, said this week that projected sales of 4 950 units for this year would be close to the plant’s single-shift capacity of 5 000 units a year.

Trautmann confirmed the company was also eyeing increased export volumes because it now supplied Sa-specification trucks to Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi in addition to those countries in the SA Customs Union, comprising Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and eswatini, previously called Swaziland.

Trautmann said in the long term this increase in demand could result in expansions to the production plant.

A new plant for Hino trucks on Toyota South Africa Motors’ extensive manufacturing site in Prospecton was officially opened in June 2014 following an investment of R55 million in infrastructure facilities and equipment.

The new assembly plant increased the annual production capacity of trucks by 1 000 units on a single shift.

Hino SA has set itself the target of selling 7 550 trucks a year by 2025, together with 150 000 service units annually and R800m in annual parts turnover.

Hino’s future plans include launching some alternative fuel truck models in the South African market.

This would include a number of Hino 300 diesel-electric hybrids being put into operation locally in a controlled environment.

Trautmann said Hino planned to have four alternative fuel platforms for its trucks by 2025, which were diesel-electric hybrids, plug-in hybrids, pure electric power and hydrogen fuel cells.

Relevant models would be considered for introduction in South Africa, he said.

Hino, together with the Toyota Dyna light truck range, achieved total sales of 4 318 units last year.

Parts sales grew 2.3 percent to R354m last year despite no general increase in parts pricing and a 4 percent decrease in the price of certain parts that were considered out of line with the competition

The number of trucks serviced by Hino dealers last year increased by

3.7 percent compared to the previous year. Trautmann said they were very happy with their performance.